Albus Dumbledore

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Albus Dumbledore is the headmaster of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling.

^{Hogwarts Headmaster, Founder of the Order of the Phoenix, with a fondness for sherbet lemon and knitting patterns.}

• "The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."
• "Ah, music! A magic beyond all we do here!"
• "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
• "After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure."
• "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally the whole school knows."
• "The Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."
• "Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself."
• "I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you."

• "I will only have truly left the school when none here are loyal to me."
• "It is not our abilities that show who we truly are, it is our choices."

• "You think the dead we love ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble."
• "Fat lady, who did this to you?"
• "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light."

• "I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.... At these times... I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure."
• "If your determination to shut your eyes will carry you so far, Cornelius, then we have reached a parting of the ways. You must act as you see fit and I must act as I see fit."
• "Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity... yes, indeed."
• "Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."
• "You place too much importance... on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!"
• "It is my belief... that the truth is generally preferable to lies."
• "Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery."
• "No spell can reawaken the dead, Harry. I trust you know that."
• "Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."
• "Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good and kind and brave because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort."

• "Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young..."
• "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,... that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that resides there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could close your mind. It was your heart that saved you."
• "By all means continue destroying my possessions, I daresay I have too many."

• "And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."
• "He [Voldemort] never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole."
• "I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment, but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness."
• "...yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often."
• "Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth."
• "It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."
• "No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines . . . I do love knitting patterns."
• "I am not worried, Harry... I am with you."

• “It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.”
• "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love."
• "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

• It's good that children's literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society. But many are disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore's sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Many also agree that Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance.
  • Peter Tatchell, "JK Rowling outs Dumbledore as gay", BBC, 20 October 2007

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Albus Dumbledore